Re-bedded the forward Hella Marine LED running lights - 2017

Our Islander Freeport 36' is not a wet boat. Our bow is 6 feet off the sea.

 Yet bashing into a big enough sea will deliver water over the bow with spray reaching the cockpit. Our 2NM NaviLED nav lights may have been leaking down through the cap rail where they have replaced the old original nav lights. We decided to re-bed them with some black silicone.

2NM NaviLED Deck Mount Port and Starboard Pair
Hella Marine Navigational Lights

Middle of June 2017 - Tied up in Marina Mazatlán, Mexico

These lights are bright! Coming into a slip at night and they will light it up!

We first removed the cover we use for the summer.

No sense having them sit in the sun for many months un-used. 

We removed the NaviLED from the cap rail and cleaned up the cap rail.

We also cleaned up the nav light of smeared silicone and then screwed the nav light in place so we could tape around it.

 We have in the past removed the NaviLED nav lights from the cap rail to refinish it. By using silicone we can remove them to fix a bad wire or whatever rather than using 3M 4000 or some other product that would make it much harder to remove the lights without damaging them.

 Then we sanded and cleaned the area inside the tape and then smeared black silicone in the area and around the underside of the nav light.

The nav lights do not sit flush on the cap rail as the rail is rounded. So the forward part of the light is about 1\4 inch off the rail in parts. We want that area filled with silicone.

 Black silicone smeared on.

We are not sure these are leaking but think they may be. Seeing as the heavy rain is      coming for the hurricane season we decided to make sure they do not leak. We saw some lines of old water marks in the chain locker and we have sealed both sides of the cap rail real good last year. So the water could only come from the nav lights. That is if the water marks are newer.  

Base of light screwed on.

And of course we put silicone on the screws before putting them back in.

The bases are on without the covers.

These will not leak now and they can be removed easily.

Not really noticeable. This may not pass in the yacht club world but out here cruising it is fine 😎 
A custom teak piece of wood for the lights to be mounted on would be nice.

Looking good again and sealed up!

All done and covered for summer. Most cruisers cover there lights for the summer it seems.